Watch ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Actors Train to Fly Jets (VIDEO)

April 22, 2022 Victor Medina

Top Gun: Maverick features some spectacular air combat sequences, all filmed without the benefit of CGI. That was due to star and producer Tom Cruise insisting on authenticity in the cockpit. That meant the actors all had to take a flight school crash course, and a new behind-the-scenes featurette (included below) shows just how difficult it was.

In the featurette, Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer discuss why now was the right time to return to the franchise. In addition, actors Miles Teller (who plays Rooster), Greg Tarzan Davis (who plays Coyote), Monica Barbaro (who plays Phoenix), Jay Ellis (who plays Payback), and Glen Powell (who plays Hangman) discussed having to take water rescue training and learning to film themselves in the cockpit (with no room for a cameraman). The video also shows the different planes and jets they had to train in, to prepare for the rigors and G-forces they would experience. Eventually, they were able to learn enough to fly in the F-18 Super Hornet, the fighter jets used in the film.

Check out the featurette here:

Top Gun: Maverick is set 30 years after the original 1986 film. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) has passed up Navy promotions and is now a test pilot. Maverick, however, is called back into service to train a newly-graduated class of pilots from the Navy’s Top Gun school for an important mission that has never before been attempted by any living pilot. Among his students is Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), Maverick’s wingman who died in the original film.

Top Gun: Maverick also stars Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris. Val Kilmer, who played Maverick’s rival “Iceman” in the original Top Gun, will also appear, as the trailer below teases. However, due to his health issues, it is unclear how extensive his role will be. Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) directs the film. Kosinski also directed another Tom Cruise film, Oblivion.

The film has been the subject of controversy after it was revealed that Maverick’s iconic jacket was altered to appease the Chinese government. A patch was removed from the jacket referencing Taiwan, an independent country that China claims is their territory. China is a major market for American films, and the communist Chinese government will ban American films for anything they deem offensive.